Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

These five philosophical essays are designed to constitute a unified whole, in both their critical and their constructive dimensions. Vincent addresses the crisis of meaning, the repetitiousness of technological processes and mechanisms and the declining sense of the real in political life.

The Second Spanish Republic survived unchallenged for a mere five years, its fall plunging Spain into a bitter civil war. The brief political history of the Republic was characterized by the rapid polarization of right and left - a process in which religion played a crucial role. Many of the ordinary faithful came to feel excluded from the new Republic, whilst those who aspired to lead them insisted that to be Catholic was to be anti-republican. Mary Vincent examines this crucial period in Spanish history, focusing on Salamanca, the home province of the leader of the principal confessional party, Jose Maria Gil Robles, and the place where the right mobilized earlier than anywhere else in Spain. The author demonstrates how political choice was eroded under the Second Republic, and reveals how popular religiosity came to be the right's most potent weapon. This original and important new analysis throws new light on the origins of the Spanish Civil War and on the controversies over who bore ultimate responsibility for the conflict.

Spain, 1833-2002 provides a cultural history of Spanish politics from the civil war of 1833 to the Spanish adoption of the Euro in 2002. A tumultuous period dominated for the most part by violent military interventions in the political process, a succession of weak, unstable, but repressive governments, and the ever-present threat of rebellion from below, this era culminated in the victory and repressive dictatorship of General Franco.
Using a wide range of sources, both textual and material, author Mary Vincent focuses on the question of how ordinary people came to identify themselves both as citizens and as Spaniards throughout this period. She argues that a weak state rather than a weak sense of nation was the key to Spain's problematic development, and that this is the key to explaining both the persistence of political violence and the strength of regional nationalism in modern Spain.
However, as Vincent shows, starting in the 1970s, with the modernization of the state and the introduction of democratic politics, all Spaniards--including Catalans and Basques--enthusiastically adopted an additional identity, that of Europeans. While questions over the territorial unity of the Spanish state have still not been wholly resolved, the political choices facing Spaniards today are very similar to those of other western European nations. Spanish singularity appears, at last, to be consigned to the past.

In 1980 Pope John Paul II and the American Bishops agreed to accept married Episcopal priests into the Roman Catholic Priesthood in a program known as the Pastoral Provision. While many Catholic priests had left their active ministries for marriage, here the Catholic Church made an historically unprecedented invitation to the priesthood for already married men. This is the true story of the journey of one such priest and his wife. Father Peter Dally, an Episcopal priest for twenty-eight years, was one of the first men to apply to the program. In a tale that exposes the complexities and uncertainties, the personal challenges and emotional trauma, the religious politics, and precarious financial difficulties surrounding such a change of churches, the Dallys discover a renewed strength in their relationship and are ultimately rewarded with success, though they must first leave Washington State and move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, before Peter is ordained after five years of struggle. This book is religious history in the making, but it is also a warm, human story of a loving married couple, their mutual support, and profound faith. This book is the revised and updated second edition. The first edition, published in 1988 by Loyola University Press, received and Oklahoma Writers Federation Award for the Best Nonfiction Book by an Oklahoma Writer in 1989. From the Foreword by Bishop Eusebius Beltran, Bishop of Tulsa: .."..I never fully recognized the depth and intensity of her own experiences until I read this, her own account. Until then, The Pastoral Provisions pointed merely to the men who were to be ordained. Now I see them encompassing the wives and families, indeed, the whole Church."